


Recollections

by AParisianShakespearean



Series: Dreams [11]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, Templars, fluff at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 20:16:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14172600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AParisianShakespearean/pseuds/AParisianShakespearean
Summary: A recollection of Cullen's childhood in Honnleath





	Recollections

Emma was in the kitchen when Rosalie tumbled in with the news: Cullen had found himself in the middle of a row. Again.

Worried, Rosalie’s blonde hair was in disarray as she tugged at Emma’s skirts. Her speech was a frantic jumble, but Emma knelt to her level, smoothed her hair away and asked her to take a deep breath. As soon as she complied, Mia and Branson filtered, and provided the whole story. They were all together by the old oak, pretending to be knights saving the princess Rosalie, when one of the village boys, Willem, came upon them.

Emma groaned. Always it was Willem, who fancied himself better than everyone in the village because his ma and pa had more money than all the other peons. It was the same thing when Emma and Peter were children. The names changed, but there was always the bully that belittled others for wearing hand-me-downs and being relegated to the back of the chantry. Never mind the fact that the entirety of Honnleath ate from the Rutherford harvest.

“Willem shoved me!” Branson exclaimed, crossing his arms, more irritated at himself for not doing something different than anything else. That was Bran though, he always wondered what could have been.

“I didn’t let him shove me,” Mia huffed, and Emma suppressed her laugh. That there was pure Mia. Stubborn as a horse and proud.

“He was going to rip my crown, but Cullen wouldn’t let him!’ Rosalie said, handing Emma the crown to inspect. Sure enough, the daises and roses, though withered, were intact. A crown fit for a delicate princess, Emma thought. Fitting as Emma was the most delicate Rutherford, though still strong willed. It was so fitting she always played the princess in their made-up games.

“Mumma,” Rose said, tugging on Emma’s dress again. “He hit him!”

“Yeah, but Cullen hit back,” Branson said. “Knocked him.”

“Until Willem knocked him down in revenge,” Mia pipped.

Emma took a deep breath before asking if he was hurt badly. Judging by the fact that he wasn’t there, she assumed not, but she still had the unshakable desire to clobber Willem’s mother for letting her son run amok and act so utterly beastly.

“Nah, just his pride,” Mia assured. “He got up well enough. He’s fine. I just wish he wasn’t so stubborn.”

Emma wished Peter was back from tilling the land. “Where is he now?”

“By the lake. He wouldn’t come with us Mum. I think he’s embarrassed.”

Emma made Mia the lady of the house while she sought Cullen. Picking up her skirts, she trekked to the lake, sighing when his blonde hair came into view, golden and bright against the setting sun. Exactly like Peter’s. In fact, when they were growing up, Peter’s blonde, curly hair was always the source of Emma’s jests. Irony of course dictated that all their children would inherit it, and Emma end up the sole brunette in a sea of wheat. Not that she minded. She truly loved the idiosyncratic golden and curly Rutherford hair, just as she loved all her children’s idiosyncrasies. Mia’s independence, Branson’s humor and laugh, Rosalie’s inherit joy. And Cullen.

Well, he was the most peculiar of all.

It wasn’t a bad thing necessarily, and it wasn’t to say that he didn’t act as other children acted. He loved tales of knights, listening to stories and sparring with sticks with his siblings. He was a good student as well, interested in learning and curious about contraptions and the way things worked. He was also an utter devil when it came to chess. But Emma could see how others would view Cullen as peculiar, even though that wasn’t her true view of him. Of course not. In fact, out of all her children, she would have said Cullen was the most like her. Yet that was exactly why others would have said he was so peculiar. He was always so far off, living in his own head. Emma was like that too.

He must have heard her approach, but he kept his eyes focused straight ahead as Emma plopped down. Mia was right. He wasn’t hurt. He usually rubbed at the parts that ached when he was, but he simply stared straight ahead, pretending not to notice her. Kicking off her shoes and tying a knot in her skirt so it wouldn’t get wet, Emma threw her feet into the water. Standing all day, kneading dough in the kitchen for supper, the cool water soothed her aching feet. Cullen was still silent, but she didn’t have to prod him. Cullen would tell her everything. Sometimes he told her everything without saying a word. He was her open book, just like how Peter was her open book.

“Mum,” he said, sooner than she thought he would, though still keeping his eyes ahead. “I—”

“Cullen Stanton Ruth—”

“Please don’t call me that.”

Emma chuckled. “Cullen Stanton Rutherford,” she said, though he winced at “Stanton,” as he always did. “It’s a very proud name. The name of my father, and the name of your great grandfather, an adventurer.”

“Mum. He was Orlesian.”

He spat out “Orlesian” like a curse. Emma thought it a bad time to inform him that seeing as how his great grandfather came from Orlais, that made Cullen part Orlesian by default.

“Willem always does that to us,” Cullen said, crossing his arms and getting the subject back to where it started. “He’s such a bully. Why is he like that?” he asked, finally turning to her.

“Some people belittle others for being different.”

“Why though?”

Emma sighed. He and Mia were at that age, the age where the world became a little more cynical. She wished she could turn back time, make his cheeks chubbier again and his eyes a little more innocent. But he was growing up. Soon enough, he would be a man.

She didn’t want to think of that.

“People think they’re better than others because they have something others don’t,” she explained, carefully and slowly. “Because people are afraid of differences.Because sometimes, people can be cruel. There’s a thousand reasons for a thousand different things. Honestly though, I think Willem is just coward and a bully.”

Cullen laughed, and it was a warm laugh, one that elicited Emma to join. She took some comfort in the fact that perhaps the day he, and all her children would grow up wasn’t so soon.

Time passed after, time spent in a comfortable silence.Yet there came a time when Emma realized she had to say what she had to say about the whole situation. Cullen was none too pleased.

“Mum,” he complained, scandalized, and taken aback. “You know that I ha-”

“You know you shouldn’t have gotten involved. I told you. Next time something like that happens, run to either your father or me. We’ll take care of him.”

“But templars protect. They don’t run.”

How long ago had it been since Cullen first spoke of the templars? Eight years old Emma would read to him at night, and as soon as she tried to get up he would tug on her hand and beg her for another story of knights. He loved those stories. Said he wanted to be one when he grew up. And the templars were the closest things Honnleath had to those knights of old in the stories. Andraste, bless Ser Rylance and the other templars who humored her son and showed him a few techniques.

“I wanted to be brave, like Ser Rylance. I wanted to protect.”

“Cullen,” Emma began, inching closer to him. “You’re still so young.”

Out of all her children, Cullen was the only one who had Emma’s eyes. Bran, Mia and Rose all inherited Peter’s green eyes. The amber regarded her sadly, something in his young, yet wise heart knowing Emma’s words held a double meaning. Perhaps Emma hung on to the belief that Cullen would change his mind about wanting to be a templar, because she was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t.

She should have known. Rutherfords didn’t change their minds, once they were made up.

“Mum,” Cullen said, still peering at her, “I want to train.”

The sadness came without warning, flooding her. She knew she shouldn’t regard it as a loss, but she couldn’t help it. She did. “Cullen,” she said feebly, holding onto that one shred of hope, “Do you know what that means?”

“I’ll have to go to the chantry, I know. But I’ll still write, and I can see you every holiday.”

“Maybe not.”

“I will write!” Cullen insisted. “I can’t not write.”

“It’s more to it than that,” Emma explained, taking that stubborn lock of hair that fell on his forehead and tucking it away. “Templars live in the Circle of Magi most of the time. Ser Rylance and the others from the chantry do protect us, but—”

“Well, they also chase apostates.”

“Yes, but when there’s no apostates, they live in the Circle, protect the mages there. They make a lot of sacrifices so others can live peacefully.”

“They protect people,” Cullen insisted. “Mum. That’s what I want to do. Protect people.”

She had one more argument, feeble as it was. “It’s difficult,” she said. “It’s a difficult, hard life.”

“But if I don’t do it, who else would?”

She held him for a long time after that. Kissed the top of his head and bit back her tears. And it was after that day that she didn’t dare defer him from protecting others.

Her Cullen. Peculiar, stuck in his head. Her son. Her protector.

He would live his dream. One day she would receive a letter from a chantry somewhere from Cullen, with words all jumbled together because he was so happy. So happy to tell her that he had done it. He achieved his dream.

He was a Rutherford. There was no question about it. He would do it.

How she adored him.

* * *

 

“Lydia….”

“Cullen. Let me help.”

Nodding, he closed his eyes, handing the razor over to her. Sometimes when she did this for him he allowed her to do so without a single complaint. Other times he stubbornly held onto the razor, his hand shaking, wanting to do it himself. She knew he wished he could always do this one simple thing.

The lyrium gave him good days and bad days.

Slowly and carefully she shaved his face, sitting atop his lap. There was the comforting feeling of his hands against her thigh as she worked, this ritual done a thousand times. On his lap, artfully stroking his jaw, and moving to her vanity to wet a washcloth in the basin to clean away the hair, the whole thing was as practiced as their lovemaking. Just as intimate, perhaps even more so, she thought as she bestowed one kiss to his forehead, before her lips trailed down, meeting his. They breathed the same air, shared the same space, and even after they were temporarily satisfied with kisses, their foreheads remained pressed together. He clung to her, breathed in her scent. Sometimes he held on so tightly she thought he was willing his body to dissolve into her. The two of them were different, so very different. Not in moments like this.

“Tomorrow will be a good day,” she promised him. “I know.”

“The bad days aren’t so bad anymore.”

She gave the smallest of smiles, sad though it was. She couldn’t help but still feel it—that twist of hatred at the cruelty of what he had gone through, what he would always have to endure. And all because he wanted to break the chains.

He told her so many times. If I don’t do it, who else will?

“You remind me of my mother.”

The part of her, the lioness, that wanted nothing more than to lead him to the bed, suddenly evaporated. Cullen realized his folly immediately—he laughed a warm laugh, assuring her his recollections weren’t in the ways she looked, which made Lydia immensely thankful.

“No you don’t look like her at all. What I meant is,” he explained, squeezing her thigh. “Mum knew exactly what to say, but she also knew when not to say anything. You do too. Does that make sense?”

“It does,” she conceded, feeling marginally better. “I know you didn’t mean it to be creepy.”

“Not at all,” he assured. “No.”

She sighed, as the amber eyes drifted away from her. She knew.

She caressed his smooth face. “You miss her,” she said.

He looked toward the mountains.

“Every day,” he muttered.

“Tell me about her.”

He seemed a bit surprised, but Lydia herself was a little shocked at herself for not asking more about Cullen’s parents before. Perhaps it was because she knew he missed them dearly, and didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to them before the Blight. Or it might have been that he always told her how grateful he was to have his siblings, how he would never take them for granted again.

Yet today. Today she wanted to her about Emma Rutherford. And Cullen smiled, held her close, and began to weave a story, one about his childhood.

“When I was young,” he wove, Lydia becoming lost in his voice, “I was sitting by the lake by myself after a row with the village bully, when my mother came to me…”


End file.
